The young woman was garbed in an elaborate striped gown with enormous sleeves and wore jewels on every finger, around her neck and wrists, and even in her hair. She sprang up from her seat at their entrance, oblivious to the linen napkin that fluttered to the floor.
“Oh, I know who you are!” she said with too much enthusiasm. “The famous treasure hunter, Dominic Prince,” she breathed with an awestruck American twang. She clapped her hands together and beamed at him, then turned her attention to Tess. “And you look a bit like his sister, Miss Eveline Prince, but you’re not, are you?”
Tess laughed. “I am not, no.” She stepped forward confidently. “I am Tess Hawthorne.”
“Sofia Van Arsdale.” The young woman held her hand out almost as a debutante would in expectation that a gentleman might take it and kiss it.
Tess clasped the young woman’s hand and shook it.
“Darling girl,” Van Arsdale boomed, as he dabbed a napkin at his lips and then tossed it aside as he stood, “I told you about the lady historian we hired in place of her deceased father.”
Dom snapped his gaze to Tess at that. She maintained her pleasant expression, seemingly unfazed by the man’s bluntness.
“You weren’t expected, Van Arsdale,” Dom told the man, who he knew he should attempt a bit more deference with.
“My dear girl here forced the issue, I’m afraid.”
Miss Van Arsdale rolled her eyes dramatically. “What Papa means to say is that he forced the issue because he fancies a titled son-in-law.” She grinned at Tess as if she might sympathize with her plight. “He’s secured invitations for me to a dozen aristocratic soirees in London, but I refused to go until we came to meet the dashing Mr. Prince.”
A demure batting of her lashes came after that revelation and then a brazen assessment of him from head to toe that her father, standing behind her, could not see.
Though Tess could.
Dom groaned inwardly.
He knew what was expected of him, like one knows the steps of a familiar dance performed again and again. And there had been a time when he would have relished it—stretching up to his full height, puffing out his chest, smoothing out his voice as he offered some brief, colorful tale of his exploits.
Now, none of it held any appeal. It felt a bit like a suit of clothes he’d long outgrown, and he took comfort in that realization, because it was a costume he no longer wished to wear.
“Stop fussing over Prince, my girl.” Van Arsdale strode past his daughter, straight up to Dom. “Now, tell us, man, what have you found?”
“We’ve only just begun, Mr. Van Arsdale.”
The tall, boisterous American’s face crumpled. “Two weeks. Money for more than a dozen men. You must have found something.”
Dom took a single step back, nearer to Tess.
The man seemed to relish using his booming voice and larger-than-life presence to overwhelm. Dom wasn’t intimidated by the man, but he did value a bit of breathing room.
Except when it came to Tess Hawthorne. To her, he couldn’t seem to get close enough.
Slowly, making sure to infuse it all with a bit of drama he thought the Americans would appreciate, Dom drew the box containing Tess’s find out of his pocket.
“We have made some discoveries. Very promising discoveries. Including this.” Dom lifted the box’s lid, tipping it forward so that the metal and gem would catch the light.
“Ooh, Papa, let me see.” Miss Van Arsdale rushed forward, one palm pressed to her chest, the other to her belly. “It’s a gem,” she said breathlessly. “An ancient ruby.”
“More likely a garnet,” Tess said factually. “But I believe the metal may be gold.”
“Thunderation,” Van Arsdale said, followed by a whistle. Though once he peered around his daughter’s wide sleeves, his forehead puckered. “It’s broken and very small.”
“It’s likely a piece of a buckle, or perhaps a brooch,” Tess offered.
“Why is it broken?”
“My theory would be grave robbers,” Dom told the man. “Perhaps within the last hundred years, or even contemporary to the burial.”
“If we could find the matching piece, and there was another ruby, imagine what lovely earbobs they’d make,” Miss Van Arsdale mused, peeking a glance at her father.
